Emergency channel

The emergency channel was a block of communications channels reserved by Starfleet for emergency use. Starfleet personnel could use this channel to transmit a plea for help or a status update after a ship or station was disabled. An emergency channel had four digits.

In a line cut from Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home[1], after being disabled by the Whale Probe, the starshipU.S.S. Saratoga transmitted a message for help on this channel to Starfleet Command. This was one of the distress calls that the crew of the HMS Bounty heard.